Thank you for this one, especially! We’re in the midst of adopting as “plan A” for adding to our family… most likely a waiting child with a health condition that makes them difficult to place (we’re able to manage that; our bio son has a serious congenital illness and we’re familiar with how to access resources). We have had some pushback from family, for sure… some old-school biases about disabilities, racial differences, the “brokenness” of foster care kids 🙄 etc.

I love how real you are, yet still so compassionate! My sister and I were adopted from foster care at ages 9 and 11. Now, my husband and I just started the matching process to adopt a teen from foster care. My mother-in-law has been in full-blown foster care horror story mode. My mother, on the other hand, is so excited and enthusiastic about our choice! It's been such a source of comfort to rely on my mom's advice through this, and it's fascinating to learn new details of her and my dad's adoption journey.

I feel that going down this journey, a lot of people might just not be supportive because they have this illusion that birth family's are ALL rainbows and unicorn daily. Which is not. To me, adoption is about commitment first( like marriage vows) to a child. The good and ugly. Anything in life can be risky. Thanks for all you do lady

I recently found your channel and am enjoying your videos as we have been considering the foster to adopt route in the near future. Thank you for your advice :)

I have been watching your videos the last couple of weeks and I have enjoyed them my spouse and are going thru the foster care to adoption route now

I am very nervous to tell my parents we are wanting to adopt teens from the foster system. My husband and I know that this is what God is calling us to do. Up until recently, my husband was not very into the idea of adopting. I’ve always wanted a large family and I’ve always known I wanted to adopt older children/ teens in need. Before we got married my husband said he would eventually like to adopt but only small children/babies because of a lot of the reasons people typically say. I thought “not what I feel led to, but this is definitely the man I feel God has led me to marry and I can pray that God will change one of our hearts and we can have more conversations about it.” Well when we had our first biological child, not only was my husband a little less sure about adoption all together, but I had some complications with my heart during labor which lead to me connecting some dots and figuring out I’d been going into something called SVT pretty often throughout my entire life but just thought I was a hypochondriac/ out of shape. Both my obstetrician and cardiologist said that it would be fine for me to keep having babies, and my husband and I both still wanted to have at least one more. Well during my second pregnancy, my heart was acting up constantly and I had problems with my thyroid leading to it being a high risk pregnancy. I was placed on medication for both issues and monitored very well by my doctors. But my husband pretty much told me that he never wanted to intentionally get me pregnant again because my heart problems scared him so bad, even though both of my doctors think it will be okay for me to have more. I understand where he’s coming from and honestly I don’t want any more babies either. But back to adoption. He still had the mindset of maybe possibly within the next 20 years. He wanted our kids to be older. And he still only wanted to even consider children under 5. But even saying that, he was skeptical and on the fence about adopting at all. Our babies are 1 and 3 now and for some reason lately I’ve been really feeling like another child is missing. At first it came in the form of just being a little disappointed that I hadn’t accidentally gotten pregnancy every month when my period came but I knew that that was honestly just biology talking. I definitely do NOT want anymore babies. And then my mind just started turning to adoption. A lot. I felt like God was trying to get my attention and I felt like everywhere I looked I was seeing something about children in foster care. I didn’t want to bring it up to my husband because i knew he didn’t think we were at the right time in life for it and I didn’t want to push it and make him have more distaste for it. But I kept praying that if this was really something God was calling me to the way I felt he had been my entire life that he would make that clear to my husband. Well on 4th of July my parents kept our two sons so we could have a date night and we went and saw the movie The Story of Possum Trot. I’ll be honest, I wanted to see it but it was also really just the only thing playing that looked any good. I really think if there had been something else we’d have both enjoyed we would have seen something different. For anyone who doesn’t know it’s a movie about the true story of Possum Trot, Texas where a small community adopted 77 kids from the foster system. When we left the theater I just didn’t even say anything about it and started talking about other things cause I wasn’t trying to push anything with going to that movie and didn’t want my husband to think I was but 15 minutes into our drive home (we live a ways away) he goes, “So I guess we need to address the elephant in the room.” I immediately got such a big grin on my face like “oh. There’s an elephant?” And we talked about what the reality of adopting would look like right now, especially with having a 1 and 3 year old and decided to give it a few days of thinking and praying and talking and let the emotions of watching a movie like that dissipate so we could think rationally and eventually my husband was like “yeah. I think we’re supposed to adopt and I think it’s now.” And then he had to think more on age and was like “yeah. I think 10 and up.” We know his family is going to be like “I think y’all are crazy but y’all are gonna be great at it,” and we have told his mom but no one else yet and she reacted pretty much exactly like that. My family, though, have never supported me in anything, actually. Or at least they did, but very begrudgingly. Like getting married. Or pursuing writing. Or having children while still in college(not in college anymore) And all of their objections have been very cultural fears that have had nothing to do with whether or not I was making the right decision for myself. I am positive that they will initially react by bringing up all the same cultural fears and horror stories everyone does when they have reservations about adoption. And I already have answers prepared. But I am so worried that even after we give them all the facts and explain that this is something God is definitely calling us to do that they will just refuse to support us at all. And my husband’s family lives 3 hours away right now. Pray for us

Thanks for sharing ❤❤❤

The fear around the child thing drives me NUTS. Do people act like this when someone announces pregnancy? No. Its like they dont realize your biological kids dont come with a safety or health guarantee. Kids get sick, hurt, violent all the time. Id wager a bet if we looked into it, more parental unalivings are committed by bio kids than foster and adopted children.

this video is wonderful. Thank you so, SO much for being real about the struggles of foster care and adoption.

Your videos are hands down the most informational, and more appreciated than you know. Do you have any other KZfaq channels you do recommend and trust?

Wait, you guys rode a motorcycle?! I'm flabbergasted. My flabs are gasted.

My husband and I currently have a 10 month old child, intend to have another biological child at some point, though also would like to adopt 1-2 children as well depending on the situation. I am researching adoption processes now and wondering if I should start doing any certifications or getting ready if we are not ready right at this moment . Do you have any advice on this situation?

good advice about advice